ETA (separatist group)

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For other meanings of ETA, see Eta.
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ETA logo

Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, or ETA, is the name of a Basque paramilitary group that seeks to create an independent state for the Basque people, separate from neighboring Spain and France. In the Basque language, Euskara, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna translates to "Basque Fatherland and Liberty" (or "Basque Country and Liberty"). ETA is officially considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. Its symbol is a snake wrapped around an axe. ETA's motto is Bietan jarrai ("Keep up on both") referring to the two figures in the symbol, symbols of secrecy/astuteness (snake) and strength (axe). The organization was founded in 1959 and changed rapidly from a group advocating traditional cultural ways to an armed resistance movement which fought a guerrilla war against the Spanish security forces. This change was motivated by General Francisco Franco's oppression of the Basques.

Context

ETA forms part of what is known as the Basque National Liberation Movement (Spanish Movimiento de Liberación Nacional Vasco, MLNV), consisting of several distinct organizations embracing left Basque nationalist politics (Spanish: izquierda nacionalista vasca, Basque: Ezker abertzale, often seen in the mixed-language izquierda abertzale). Among these are ETA, Batasuna, Euskal Herritarrok, Herri Batasuna, and the associated youth group Haika (previously known as Jarrai, then Segi), the union LAB, Gestoras pro Amnistía and others. All of these are generally identified with the KAS Alternative described in the next section.

ETA is believed to be financed principally by a so-called "revolutionary tax", paid by many businesses in the Basque Country and enforced by the threat of assassination. They also kidnap people for ransom and have occasionally burgled or robbed storehouses of explosives.

Social support

During the Franco era, ETA had considerable public support (even beyond the Basque populace), but Spain's transition to democracy and ETA's progressive radicalization have resulted in a steady loss of support, which became especially patent at the time of their 1997 kidnapping and assassination of Miguel Ángel Blanco. Their loss of sympathizers has been reflected in an erosion of support for the political parties identified with the MLNV.

In recent years, their supporters are clearly a minority in the Basque region. According to the Euskobarómetro [1], a sociological poll (conducted by the Universidad del País Vasco) of various matters in the Spanish autonomous community of Basque Country (País Vasco), as of May 2004 a significant number of Basques support some or all of ETA's goals, but few support their violent methods:

  • 33% favor Basque independence, 31% federalism, 32% autonomy, 2% centralism. (2% undecided or not answering)
  • Asked whether they agree or disagree with the statement, "Today in Euskadi it is possible to defend all political aspirations and objectives without the necessity of resorting to violence, 87% agree and only 4% disagree (9% undecided or not answering). In fact, 33% of those who identify politically with Batasuna actively agreed with the statement.
  • Asked directly about their views of ETA, 60% rejected ETA totally and another 18% identified themselves as former ETA sympathizers who no longer support the group. Another 13% agreed with ETA's ends, but not their means. 3% said that their attitude towards ETA was mainly one of fear, 2% indifference. Only 2%, all identified with Batasuna, gave ETA support even as mild as "justified, with criticism. 2% were undecided or did not answer. Even within Batasuna, 63% rejected ETA's violence.

The poll does not cover Navarre or the Basque areas of France; Basque nationalism is weaker in those areas.

Goals

In general, ETA has two demands:

During the 1980s, the Basque Revolutionary Left summarized its claims in the KAS Alternative. Four decades after the creation of ETA, the idea of creating a Socialist state in the Basque Country has begun to seem off-balance, utopian, and impractical. Hence ETA has adjusted its agenda by opening up to new possibilities, as reflected in the 1995 "Democratic Alternative" which offered the cessation of all armed ETA activity if the Spanish-government would recognize the Basque people as having sovereignty over Basque territory and the right to self-determination.

Other demands of the group are:

  • That the Spanish Government relocate imprisoned ETA members closer to the Basque Country and their families.
  • To have a referendum on self-determination (following the Quebec example) where the Basque Country would decide whether they want to remain a part of Spain or not.

The organization has adopted other tactical causes such as fighting against:

Structure

ETA is organized into distinct talde ("groups"), whose objective is to conduct military/terrorist operations in a specific geographic zone; collectively, they are coordinated by the cúpula militar ("military cupola"). In addition, they maintain safe houses and zulo-s (caches of arms or explosives; the Basque word zulo literally means "hole" [2]).

Among its members, ETA distinguishes between legalak, those members who do not have police files, liberados, exiled to France, and quemados, freed after having been imprisoned.

The internal organ of ETA is Zutik ("Standing").

Tactics

ETA's tactics of intimidation include:

  • Assassination and murder, especially via car bombs or via a gunshot to the nape of the neck.
  • Anonymous threats, often delivered in the Basque Country by placards or graffiti, and which have forced many people into hiding; an example was the harassment of onetime Juan María Atutxa, when he served as head of the department of justice for the Basque Country.
  • The so-called "revolutionary tax".
  • Kidnapping (often as a punishment for failing to pay the "revolutionary tax").

ETA operates mainly in Spain, particularly in the Basque Country, Navarre, and (to a lesser degree) Madrid, Barcelona and the tourist areas of the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Recently, they sometimes attack civilian targets, but have usually focused on "military" targets. However, ETA has included both police and politicians in their definition of the military.

As of 2004, ETA has killed over 800 people, and the range of their victims has broadened over the years; targets have included, among others:

Before bombings, ETA members often make a telephone call so that people can be evacuated. Sometimes the calls give incorrect information resulting in the deaths of police or civilians. An estimated 800 people have been killed in ETA's attacks since the 1960s.

A police file, dating from 1996, indicated that ETA needs about 15 million pesetas (about 90,000 Euros) daily in order to finance its operations. Although ETA used robbery as a means of financing in its early days, it has since been accused both of arms trafficking and of benefiting economically from its political counterpart Batasuna. The two most important methods that the organization has used to obtain finances are kidnapping and extortion, euphemistically known as "revolutionary taxes." Other similar organizations such as FARC have also used this tactic. In 2002 the judge Baltasar Garzón seized the herriko tabernas (people's taverns) which were reportedly collecting these "revolutionary taxes".

ETA is known to have had contacts with the Irish Republican Army; the two groups have both, at times, characterized their struggles as parallel to one another. It has also had links with other militant left-wing movements in Europe and in other places throughout the world. Because of its allegiance to Marxist ideas, ETA has in the past been sponsored by communist regimes such as Cuba, as well as by Libya and Lebanon. Some of its members have found political asylum in Mexico and Venezuela.

Attacks by ETA

Victims
Civilian 339
Police or military 478
Total 817
Source: Spanish Ministry
of the Interior [3] [4]

ETA has conducted many high-profile attacks over the years. Among the most significant have been:

  • 1961: First ETA attack, an unsuccessful attempt to derail a train.
  • 1968: Melitón Manzanas, a secret police chief (an alleged torturer) in the Basque city of San Sebastian, is killed in ETA's first deadly attack.
  • December 1973: Prime Minister Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco is assassinated in Madrid in retaliation for the government's execution of Basque separatists.
  • September 13, 1974: A bomb is placed inside the "Rolando" cafeteria in Madrid, killing 12 civilians.
  • September 1985: First ETA car bomb in Madrid kills an American citizen and wounds 16 Civil Guards.
  • July 14, 1986: A car bomb on República Dominicana square in Madrid explodes at the passing of a microbus carrying young Civil Guards, killing 12 of them and injuring 50 people.
  • June 19, 1987: A car bomb explodes in the underground car park of an Hipercor hypermarket in Barcelona, killing 21 civilians and injuring 45.
  • December 11, 1987: 250 kg of explosives inside a car bomb explode next to the Civil Guard's Casa Cuartel in Zaragoza, killing 11 people and injuring 40.
  • May 29, 1991: A car bomb loaded with 70 kg of explosives is detonated inside the Civil Guard's Casa Cuartel in Vic (Barcelona), which was located next to a school. 10 people are killed (4 of them children) and 28 are injured.
  • June 21, 1993: A car bomb explodes at the passing of a military van at the junction of López de Hoyos and Joaquín Costa streets in Madrid, killing 6 soldiers and 1 civilian and injuring 20 people.
  • 1995: Assassination plot on King Juan Carlos of Spain foiled.
  • April 19, 1995: Nearly successful attempt to kill José María Aznar, the leader of Spain's right-wing opposition and future Prime Minister. A car bomb loaded with 40 kg of explosives is detonated at the passing of his official car. He is saved by his vehicle's armor plating.
  • December 11, 1995: A car bomb explodes at the passing of military van in the Vallecas borough of Madrid, killing 6 civilians who worked for the Army.
  • 1997: Abduction of Basque councillor Miguel Angel Blanco, prompting six million Spaniards to join mass demonstrations against ETA. The organization asks the government to relocate all imprisoned ETA terrorists in prisons closer to the Basque Country. When the government does not accept this demand, Miguel Angel Blanco is assassinated.
  • December 21-22, 1999: The Spanish Civil Guard intercepts a Madrid-bound van driven by ETA members and loaded with 950 kg of explosives near Calatayud (Zaragoza); the next day, another van loaded with 750 kg is found not far from there. The incident is known as "la caravana de la muerte" (the caravan of death). Shortly after 9/11, ETA confirmed their plan had been to use those 1,700 kg to blow down Torre Picasso (online report with video in Spanish [5]).
  • December 18, 2000: A bomb is placed inside an elevator of the Faculty of Journalism of the University of the Basque Country in Lejona (Vizcaya). The bomb was detected in time by Prof. Edurne Uriarte's bodyguard, and then deactivated.
  • May 12, 2001: Thirteen people are injured when a car bomb explodes in Madrid days before regional elections in the Basque County. Eight minutes before the bomb exploded, an anonymous ETA caller warned authorities.
  • May 24, 2001: Santiago Oleaga Elejabarrieta, 54, the chief financial officer of El Diario Vasco (The Basque Daily), the most widely circulated newspaper in Guipúzcoa, dies instantly after being shot in the head. The attack was likely motivated by the anti-ETA editorials of El Diario.
  • July 10, 2001: Luis Ortiz de la Rosa, 33, a police officer, is killed at 8:30 PM in a southern neighborhood in Madrid when a car bomb explodes. The blast also injures twelve. A call from ETA 45 minutes before had been made, and police were clearing the area when the bomb detonated.
  • July 14, 2001: Twin attacks by ETA claim the lives of two within hours of each other. Jose Javier Múgica, 50, a regional councilor and member of the center-right Union of the People of Navarra party, dies after a car bomb is placed in his van in the northern village of Leiza; Mikel Uribe, 44, a plain-clothes police officer, dies after being shot from behind in his car in the town of Leaburu.
  • July 27, 2001: Three people were injured at 2:30 AM when a powerful explosion occurred in front of the La Caixa bank in downtown Madrid. In the same day, Spanish authorities deactivated what was described as a "massive" car bomb in an airport in Malaga, a major tourist destination. An ETA caller warned ahead of time that the bomb was set.
  • August 27, 2001: Days after a series of raids, ETA warns the authorities about a bomb they set to explode at around 8 AM in Madrid Barajas Airport. The 40 to 50 kg of explosives placed inside a stolen car explode on the second floor of Terminal 2 (national flights) car park, causing only material damage.
  • September 2, 2001: A home-made bomb explodes at 9 AM in Vitoria in an electronics store owned by an officer of the Ertzaintza regional police force. The bomb damages cars but causes no personal injuries.
  • December 24, 2003: ETA attempts to blow 50 kg of explosives inside Madrid's busy Chamartín Station at 3:55 PM on Christmas Eve. The police thwarted the attempt when they stopped Garikoitz Arruarte trying to load 28 kg of explosives into a Madrid-bound train in San Sebastián. Another bomb with over 20 kg of explosives was then found inside a second train passing near Burgos, already several hundred kilometers on its way to Madrid.

Counterterrorism

Members of ETA have often taken refuge in southwestern France, especially the French Basque Country and Aquitaine. Although this used to be tolerated by the French government, especially during the Franco dictatorship when ETA members were often regarded as political refugees, in recent years the French have been extremely active against ETA. A number of ETA members have been captured on French soil and extradited to Spain to stand trial. During the 1970s and the 1980s, ETA members and its suspected supporters had been the target of right-wing and state terrorism (such as GAL). Several ETA members were executed during the Franco era.

Political issues

ETA's political wing is Batasuna, formerly known as Euskal Herritarrok and "Herri Batasuna", which generally receives about 10% of the vote in the Basque areas of Spain.

Batasuna's political status has been a very controversial issue. The Spanish Cortes (parliament) began the process of declaring the party illegal in August 2002, a move which was strongly disputed by many who felt that it was too draconian. Judge Baltasar Garzón suspended the activities of Batasuna in a parallel trial, investigating the relationship between Batasuna and ETA, and its headquarters were shut down by police. The Supreme Court of Spain finally declared Batasuna illegal on March 18, 2003. The court considered proven that Batasuna had several links with ETA and that it was, in fact, part of ETA. Batasuna was listed as a terrorist organization by the United States in May 2003 and by all EU countries in June 2003.

In Spain, all Members of Parliament not belonging to Batasuna or any of the independentist political parties are required to carry a permanent escort lest they should be attacked by ETA. This also extends to all Basque city councilors of non-Basque-Nationalist parties and several of the Basque Nationalist officials.

History

During Franco's dictatorship

ETA was founded by young nationalists, initially affiliated with the PNV. Started in 1953 as a student discussion group at the University of Deusto in Bilbao, an offshoot of the PNV's youth group EGI, it was originally called EKIN, from the Basque-language verb meaning "to act"; the name had the meaning "get busy". [6], [7] On July 31, 1959 it reconstituted itself as ETA. Their split from the PNV was apparently because they considered the PNV too moderate in its opposition to Franco's dictatorship. They disagreed with the PNV's rejection of violent tactics and advocated a Basque resistance movement utilizing direct action. This was an era of wars of national liberation such as the anti-colonial war in Algeria.

In their platform, formed at their first assembly in Bayonne, France in 1962, ETA called for "historical regenerationism", considering Basque history as a process of construction of a nation. They declared that Basque nationality is defined by the Basque language, Euskara; this was in contrast to the PNV's definition of Basque nationality in terms of ethnicity. In contrast with the explicit Catholicism of the PNV, ETA defined itself as "aconfessional" (religiously pluralistic), rejecting the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, although using Catholic doctrine to elaborate its social program. They called for socialism and for "independence for Euskadi, compatible with European federalism".

In 1965, ETA adopted a Marxist-Leninist position; its precise political line has varied with time, although they have always advocated some type of socialism.

In its early years, ETA's activity seems to have consisted mostly of theorizing and of protesting by destroying infrastructure and Spanish symbols and by hanging forbidden Basque flags.

It is not possible to say when ETA first began a policy of assassination, nor is it clear who committed the first assassinations identified with ETA. There are sources that say the first was the June 27, 1960 death of a 22-month-old child, Begoña Urroz Ibarrola, who died in a bombing in San Sebastián; other sources single out a failed 1961 attempt to derail a train carrying war veterans; others point to the unpremeditated June 7, 1968 killing of a guardia civil, José Pardines Arcay by ETA member Xabi Etxebarrieta: the policeman had halted Etxebarrieta's car for a road check. Etxebarrieta was soon killed by the Spanish police, leading to retaliation in the form of the first ETA assassination with major repercussions, was that of Melitón Manzanas, chief of the secret police in San Sebastián and a suspected torturer. In 1970, several members of ETA were condemned to death in the Proceso de Burgos ("Trial of Burgos"), but international pressure resulted in commutation of the sentences, which, however, had by that time already been applied to some other members of ETA. The most consequential assassination performed by ETA during Franco's dictatorship was the December 1973 assassination by bomb in Madrid of admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, Franco's chosen successor and president of the government (a position roughly equivalent to being a prime minister). This killing, committed as a reprisal for the execution of Basque independentistas, was widely applauded by the Spanish opposition in exile.

During the transition

After Franco's death, during Spain's transition to democracy ETA split into two separate organizations: the majority became ETA political-military or ETA(pm), the minority ETA military or ETA(m). ETA(pm) accepted the Spanish government's offer of amnesty to all ETA prisoners, even those who had committed violent crimes; abandoned the policy of violence; and integrated into the political party Euskadiko Ezkerra ("Left of the Basque Country"), which years later split. One faction retained the name Euskadiko Ezkerra for some years, before merging into the Partido Socialista de Euskadi (PSE), the Basque affiliate of the national PSOE); the other became Euskal Ezkerra (EuE, "Basque Left") and then merged into Eusko Alkartasuna. Some of the former ETA members (like Mario Onaindía, Jon Juaristi, Joseba Pagazaurtundua) evolved to non-nationalist leftism or even Spanish nationalism, thus becoming targets or victims for ETA.

Meanwhile, ETA(m) (which, again, became known simply as ETA) adopted even more radical and violent positions. The years 1978–80 were to prove ETA's most deadly, with 68, 76, and 91 fatalities, respectively. [Martinez-Herrera 2002]

During the Franco era, ETA was able to take advantage of toleration by the French government, which allowed its members to move freely through French territory, believing that in this manner they were contributing to the end of Franco's regime. There is much controversy over the degree to which this policy of "sanctuary" continued even after the transition to democracy, but it is generally agreed that currently the French authorities collaborate closely with the Spanish government against ETA.

Under democracy

ETA performed their first car bomb assassination in Madrid in September 1985, resulting in one death and 16 injuries; another bomb in July 1986 killed 12 members of the Guardia Civil and injured 50; on July 19, 1987 the Hipercor bombing was an attack in a shopping center in Barcelona, killing 21 and injuring 45; in the last case, several entire families were killed. ETA claimed in a communique that they had given advance warning of the Hipercor bomb, but that the police had declined to evacuate the area.

In a "dirty war" against ETA, Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL, "Antiterrorist Liberation Groups"), a government-sponsored and supposedly counter-terrorist organization active 1986–87 (and possibly later) committed assassinations, kidnappings and torture, not only of ETA members but of civilians, some of whom turned out to have nothing to do with ETA. In 1997 a Spanish court convicted and imprisoned several individuals involved in GAL, not only footsoldiers but politicians up to the highest levels of government, including a minister of the interior. No major cases of foul play on part of the Spanish government after 1987 have been proven in court, although ETA supporters routinely claim human rights violations and torture by security forces, and international human rights organizations have backed some of these claims.

In 1986 Gesto por la Paz (known in English as Association for Peace in the Basque Country) was founded; they began to convene silent demonstrations in communities throughout the Basque Country the day after any violent killing, whether by ETA or by GAL. These were the first systematic demonstrations in the Basque Country against terrorist violence. Also in 1986, in Ordizia, ETA assassinated María Dolores Katarain, known as "Yoyes", the former director of ETA who had abandoned armed struggle and rejoined civil society: they accused her of "desertion".

January 12, 1988 all Basque political parties except the ETA-affiliated Herri Batasuna signed the Ajuria-Enea pact with the intent of ending ETA's violence. Weeks later on January 28, ETA announced a 60-day "ceasefire", later prolonged several times. A negotiation in Algeria known as the Mesa de Argel ("Algiers Table") was attempted between ETA (represented by Eugenio Etxebeste, "Antxon") and the then-current PSOE government of Spain, but no successful conclusion was reached, and ETA eventually resumed the use of violence.

During this period, the Spanish government had a policy referred to as "reinsertion", under which imprisoned ETA members who the government believed had genuinely abandoned violent intent could be freed and allowed to rejoin society. Claiming a need to prevent ETA from coercively impeding this reinsertion, the PSOE government decided that imprisoned ETA members, who previously had all been imprisoned within the Basque Country, would instead be dispersed to prisons throughout Spain, some as far from their families as in the Salto del Negro prison in the Canary Islands. France has taken a similar approach. In the event, the only clear effect of this policy was to incite social protest, especially from nationalists, over the supposed illegality of the policy itself.

Another Spanish counter-terrorist law puts suspected terrorist cases under the the specialized tribunal Audiencia Nacional in Madrid. Suspected terrorists are subject to a habeas corpus term longer than other suspects.

In 1992, ETA's three top leaders — military leader Francisco Mujika Garmendia ("Pakito"), political leader José Luis Alvarez Santacristina ("Txelis") and logistical leader José María Arregi Erostarbe ("Fiti"), often referred to collectively as the "cupola" of ETA or as the Artapalo collective [8] — were arrested in the French Basque town of Bidart, which led to changes in ETA's leadership and direction. After a two-month truce, ETA adopted even more radical positions. The principal consequence of the change appears to have been the creation of the "Y Groups", young people (generally minors) dedicated to so-called "kale borroka" — street struggle — and whose activities included burning buses, street lamps, benches, ATMs, garbage containers, etc. and throwing Molotov cocktails. The appearance of these groups was attributed by many to supposed weakness of ETA, which obligated them to resort to minors to maintain or augment their impact on society after arrests of leading militants, including the "cupola". ETA also began to menace leaders of other parties besides rival Basque nationalist parties. The existence of the "Y Groups" as an organized phenomenon has been contested by some supporters of Basque national liberation, who claim that this construction is merely a trumped-up excuse to give longer prison sentences to those convicted of street violence.

In 1995, the armed organization again launched a peace proposal. The so-called Democratic Alternative replaced the earlier KAS Alternative as a minimum proposal for the establishment of Euskal Herria. The Democratic Alternative offered the cessation of all armed ETA activity if the Spanish-government would recognize the Basque people as having sovereignty over Basque territory and the right to self-determination. The Spanish government ultimately rejected this peace offer.

Also in 1995 came a failed ETA car bombing attempt directed against José María Aznar, a conservative politician who was leader of the then-opposition Partido Popular (PP) and was shortly after elected to the presidency of the government; their was also an abortive attempt in Majorca on the life of King Juan Carlos I. Still, the act with the largest social impact came the following year. July 10, 1997 PP activist Miguel Ángel Blanco was kidnapped in the Basque city of Ermua and his death threatened unless the Spanish government would meet ETA's demands. Six million people demonstrated to demand his liberation, with demonstrations occurring as much in the Basque regions as elsewhere in Spain. After three days, ETA carried through their threat, unleashing massive demonstrations reflecting the ETA action with the cries of "Assassins" and "Basques yes, ETA no". This response came to be known as the "Spirit of Ermua".

After the Good Friday Accord marked the beginning of the end of violent hostilities in Northern Ireland, and given that the Ajuria-Enea pact had failed to bring peace to the Basque Country, the Lizarra/Estella Pact brought together political parties, unions, and other Basque groups in hopes again of changing the political situation. Shortly after, September 18, 1998, ETA declared a unilateral truce or ceasefire, and began a process of dialogue with Spain's PP government. The dialogue continued for some time, but ETA resumed assassinations in 2000, accusing the government of being "inflexible" and of "not wanting dialogue". The communique that declared the end of the truce cited the failure of the process initiated in the Lizarra/Estella Pact to achieve political change as the reason for the return to violence. The Spanish government, from the highest levels, accused ETA of having declared a false truce in order to rearm. Later came acts of violence such as the November 6, 2001 car bomb in Madrid, which injured 65, and attacks on soccer stadiums and tourist destinations.

The September 11 attacks appear do have dealt a hard blow to ETA, owing to the toughening of antiterrorist measures (such as the freezing of bank accounts), the increase in international police coordination, and the end of the toleration some countries had, up until then, extended to ETA. In addition, in 2002 the Basque nationalist youth movement Jarrai was outlawed and the law of parties was changed outlawing Herri Batasuna, the "political arm" of ETA (although even before the change in law, Batasuna had been lagely paralyzed and under judicial investigation by judge Baltasar Garzón).

With ever-increasing frequency, attempted ETA actions have been frustrated by Spanish security forces. On Christmas Eve 2003, in San Sebastián and in Hernani, National Police arrested two ETA members who had left dynamite in a railroad car prepared explode in Chamartín Station in Madrid. On March 1, 2004, in a place between Alcalá de Henares and Madrid, a light truck with 536 kg of explosives was left to cause a massacre, but was prevented by the action of the Guardia Civíl.

Recent events

February 18, 2004, ETA publicly stated that a ceasefire only in Catalonia had been in effect since January 1, based on "a desire to unite the ties between the Basque and Catalan peoples." Some claimed that this ceasefire was based on a secret pact with Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira, leader of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC, "Republican Left of Catalonia"). Carod-Rovira, despite admitting to having met with ETA in France in December denied having reached any accord, saying that the meeting was an attempt to drive ETA away from violence, and ended with no results. This, during an electoral campaign, became a scandal, and endangered the recent tripartite Catalan government, formed by ERC (ERC), Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds-Esquerra Unida i Alternativa (ICV-EUiA) and the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya (PSC). The opposition then accused Aznar of being behind the leak to the media of the intelligence report detailing the meeting and Aznar refused to clarify whether he knew about this meeting before the leaking. Aznar was also questioned as to why the ETA members who attended that meeting were not detained.

Also in 2004, ETA was initially suspected of being the authors of a series of ten bombings only a few days before the national elections, which targeted three locations along Madrid's suburban train lines on the morning of March 11, 2004, killing 192 civilians (see 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks). This theory was officially endorsed by José María Aznar's government, despite the police quickly gathering evidence pointing towards Islamic terrorism. Many Spanish citizens took this rush to judgment as an offence towards the victims of the attacks and towards the Spanish people; this was generally seen as a decisive factor in the electoral result which overturned Aznar's government (see Spanish legislative election, 2004). The authorship of this attack, the largest European terror incident in terms of lives lost since the 1988 Pan Am flight 103 flight bombing, has been finally ascribed to Islamist terrorists by the Spanish police.

On September 27, 2004 ETA militants sent a videotape to Gara, a Basque newspaper based in Guipuzcoa, in which the militants stated that ETA would continue to fight for Basque self-determination and that ETA would "respond with arms at the ready to those who deny us through the force of arms." This videotape represented ETA's first major public statement since the March 11 attacks. During the weekend preceding the videotape release, the group claimed responsibility for a series of bombings that hampered electricity transmission between France and Spain.

October 3, 2004 French police launched an operation against ETA's logisitical apparatus, making 21 arrests, among them the couple who functioned as top ETA leaders, Mikel Albizu Iriarte ("Mikel Antza") and Soledad Iparragirre ("Anboto"). They found four zulos (caches) with a vast quantity of armaments, much greater than had been estimated to be at ETA's disposal; they also managed to turn up information about ETA's printing an internal newsletter, but nothing leading to any major bank account or other horde of money. The operation was considered one of the most successful since Bidart in 1992. As of October 2004, it appears that these measures will result in ETA leadership moving into different hands; it is too soon to evaluate the consequences. Spain has solicited the extradition of Mikel Antza y Amboto via a Euroorden.

  • October 8, 1999: ETA is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTA) by the U.S. government for the first time.
  • May 25, 2001: Thousands of Spaniards participate in a silent march through San Sebastian, a northern city, to protest the killing of journalist Santiago Oleaga Elejabarrieta. Banners are held that read "No To ETA – Peace And Freedom." Spanish reporters give a statement saying, "However much they kill and try to impose their cause through terror we, as media professionals, will defend the expression which took so long to achieve in this country."
  • July 11, 2001 Hundreds of people gather in Madrid to commemorate the life of slain policeman Luis Ortiz de la Rosa, who was killed the preceding day. The rally protests the ETA’s actions.
  • July 15, 2001: CNN reports that hundreds of Spaniards have gathered in city and town halls around Spain to silently protest two killings blamed on the Basque separatist group ETA. The cities include Pamplona, Vitoria, and Zaragoza.
  • August 24, 2001: The Spanish police arrest six suspected ETA members in the Barcelona suburb of Terrasa, seizing over 550 pounds of what CNN reports as "explosives, firearms, forged license plates and electronic detonator components."
  • February 26, 2002: U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill announces that the U.S. has frozen assets of 21 people associated with ETA.
  • December 22, 2002: Ibon Fernandez Iradi, who is suspected of teaching ETA members how to make bombs, escapes from custody in a police station in Bayonne, France.
  • October 8, 2003: 34 suspected ETA members are arrested in the early morning. Twenty-nine are apprehended in northern Spain and five in France.
  • December 9, 2003: Police in southwestern France arrest Gorka Palacios, 29, the alleged military commander of ETA. Three people who the police said were collaborator were also arrested in the 6 AM raid on a house in the village of Lons, near the town of Pau. At a news conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, Spanish interior minister Angel Acebes characterized the arrests as of "great significance" and of "first magnitude."
  • February 20, 2004: Nine men and a woman are arrested, making the number of ETA suspects detained this week to 33. They worked on a Basque-language newspaper, Euskaldunon Egunkaria, published statements from ETA.
  • March 21, 2004: A spokesman for the newly elected PSOE government of Spain rejects a proposal from ETA for negotiations because ETA was not prepared to surrender its weapons.

Other armed organizations acting in the Basque Country

ETA presence in Latin America

Some ex-militants live in Latin American countries where they have received political asylum. The Colombian government accuses Irish and Basque citizens in Colombia of being IRA and ETA members teaching terrorist techniques to FMLN guerrillas.

References

Documentary films

Non-fictional films about ETA

Other films

Other fact-based films about ETA:

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